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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24751816">A Creature by Any Other Name</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/squire/pseuds/squire'>squire</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Comedy of Errors, Developing Relationship, Feelings Realisation, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Frottage, Geralt is an idiot, Jaskier &amp; Yennefer friendship, M/M, Misunderstandings, OK tiny teensy bit of angst too, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:21:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>15,478</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24751816</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/squire/pseuds/squire</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaskier is entirely, perfectly, hundred percent human. </p><p>Geralt is the last to believe it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>229</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>883</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Fairie</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Since <a href="https://squire-reblogs.tumblr.com/post/620527272789704704/jaskier-is-100-human-and-geralt-is-the-last-to">this post on Tumblr</a> got so many positive responses, I thought, why not.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It starts on the dragon hunt. Well, a lot of shit starts going down on the dragon hunt, it’s a veritable shitstorm of an adventure, but once all is settled and all parts have clawed their respective ways out of it, this is what Geralt remembers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A passing remark. He would’ve almost forgotten it, but somehow it stuck with him, and now he can’t forget it if he tried. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Those crows feet are new.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer had tossed that remark at Jaskier in lieu of a greeting, the day they ran into each other on their way up the King Niedamir’s mountain. A rather childish dig in Geralt’s opinion, after all, her own beauty was meticulously crafted and maintained by magic, without it she would’ve been all shriveled up for years now, natural wrinkles and spots a testament to her real age… </span>
</p><p>
  <span>...there was something down that train of thought that kept nagging at Geralt’s mind, but with all the dragon-hunting, hunters-slaying, sorceress-arguing and shit-shoveling, he couldn’t stop and think about it at the time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had very little time to think of it afterwards, too. For one, there was a whole damn war to hold his attention, namely to try and evade it while gathering his Child Surprise. Add to it the emotional turmoil of meeting Jaskier again after fucking months worrying about Nilfgaard getting to the bard first, only to find out that Jaskier didn’t hate him entirely and was willing to downgrade it to not hating him at all if Geralt never tried to blame his own mistakes on him again - well, bigger thinkers than Geralt of Rivia would have forgotten about that small nagging detail. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But now, his little found family of a throne-less princess, a self-proclaimed greatest poet of the Continent, and a severely battle-weakened sorceress is all safely tucked up inside the walls of Kaer Morhen for the winter, the old familiar walls of the crumbling witcher keep doing marvels for Geralt’s nerves… so of course his brain goes and fishes out this one tiny, teensy little remark.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Crows feet. Signs of aging around the eyes of the very human, very mortal bard. Try as he might, Geralt can’t see any on Jaskier’s smooth face as they sit around the fireplace in the grand hall, his brothers and his mentor bent over a game of Gwent, Yennefer going over an old tome on Chaos with Cirilla, and the bard strumming his lute to the crackling of the fire. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier looks just as young as he did during the first years of their acquaintance. Geralt’s own grasp on the passage of time might be shit - after all, what is a decade when you’ll be walking this earth for centuries - but now he has a very clear frame of comparison. Cirilla had been the Surprise back on that fateful day in Cintra, a babe unborn, barely a slight tremor in the strings of Fate. She is twelve now. And in all those twelve years, possibly even more, Jaskier hasn’t aged a day. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It bothers Geralt more than he thought it possible. Human lives are pitifully short, and there’s a little kernel of </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span> tucked right under Geralt’s breastbone and a little to the left which keeps fluttering with excitement at the thought that Jaskier might live longer. That he won’t lose him so fast. But Geralt is nothing but rational. Humans don’t live long, and if Jaskier does, then he can’t be human. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And if he’s not human, he’s something else. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it’s Geralt’s job to know what. His duty, even. It’s not just him anymore. He has his Child Surprise to protect. What if Jaskier turns out to be a threat?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Outside, in the middle of the training yard, Cirilla has just tackled Jaskier to the ground with a practice sword pressed firmly against his neck. Lambert is correcting her stance. Even at twelve, the Lion Cub of Cintra can take care of herself. Geralt sometimes wishes she didn’t have to.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oi, what are you doing here, Geralt, all holed up in the library on such a fine morning?” Jaskier laughs as he walks in, his voice still wheezy with the breath Ciri has knocked out of him. He’s not so surreptitiously rubbing his backside, the fabric there wet from the melting snow he landed squarely on, and Geralt puts away the book he’d been paging through and goes over to him, cupping the bard’s neck and tilting his head to the side. A fast growing bump bears witness to when his head connected with the stone paved ground under the force of Cirilla’s attack. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It - </span>
  <em>
    <span>ow</span>
  </em>
  <span> -” Jaskier shies away when Geralt’s rough fingers brush over the tender spot - “looks worse than it is,” he assures the witcher. “Our cub is growing claws,” he says, with a smile full of pride. As if it was an </span>
  <em>
    <span>honor</span>
  </em>
  <span> to be dragged through the mud by a ferocious child. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt only hums. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Our cub</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Jaskier has said. Somehow it sounds so right. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We should get you a sword and make you join the morning practices,” he says eventually. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier makes a face. “I’d just end up cutting off my fingers and how would I then play my lute, pray tell? It’s all right, I don’t mind having my ass handed to me by a little girl. She’s a future witcher, whereas I’ll die just a humble bard.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Will you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Geralt thinks. He doesn’t say anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier prances off to get a cold compress on the back of his head and Geralt is once again left alone to his thinking. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier looks and smells human. He bruises. He also heals, quite normally. Geralt’s medallion has never acted up around him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he still doesn’t fucking age. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He lifts again the old, worn tome he’d been perusing earlier and tries to concentrate on the ancient script. This is how Vesemir finds him, some time later. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What has that book done to you that you’re trying to glower a hole through it,” the old master of the keep asks, glancing at the spine. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>The Fair Court?</span>
  </em>
  <span> Really?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What of it?” Geralt grumbles defensively. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Never pegged you as one with a penchant for fairy tale drivel,” Vesemir snorts. “We need more meat in our pantry if we’re to host the entire entourage of yours, and instead of hunting, here you’re sitting and reading old wives’ tales.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What if there’s some truth in it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Geralt.” Vesemir sighs. “They don’t exist.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What if they do?” Geralt doesn’t want to back down. He’s sure he’s on the right track, and if he could make Vesemir see his point… “What if Jaskier-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Seriously?” Vesemir stares at him as if Geralt has grown a pair of antlers himself. “You think the bard’s a fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>fae?</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He didn’t tell me his real name for years,” Geralt gets through gritted teeth. It fits with what he found in this book, and it would hurt a little less, if he found out that Jaskier’s reservations had been because the fae just </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>give their name freely… and not because he didn’t trust Geralt, point blank. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And?” Vesemir counters. “Would you have been a lesser ass to him if you knew he came from the nobility?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt winces. That wasn’t the point. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He won’t touch a sword,” he points out next. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“From what I’ve seen, he’s right to do so,” Vesemir laughs it off. “He’s a bard, not a fighter. You’d be probably just as useless with a lute as he’s with a weapon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Damn, Geralt could use one talk with his old mentor that wouldn’t turn into a lecture. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not just the weapons,” he insists. “He won’t touch any iron. I asked him to help me reshoeing Roach, he snuck off to have a bath instead.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d say that being a lazy brat is an entirely human trait,” Vesemir scoffs. “And to be fair, I wouldn’t want to go near that mare of yours either. She’s a mean biter.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m being serious,” Geralt feels the growl rising in his chest, his frustration getting the better of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re being ridiculous,” Vesemir cuts off the growl in the bud. “That bard of yours is human. Deal with it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And blast Vesemir, really, for having unerringly hit the nail on the head as he always does. Geralt doesn’t want to </span>
  <em>
    <span>deal with it</span>
  </em>
  <span>. For some reason, the thought of himself standing by Jaskier’s deathbed, watching his withered friend take his last breath, doesn’t bear thinking. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>No. Jaskier can’t be human, and Geralt will get to the bottom of this. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Siren</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Several days have passed with Geralt quietly stewing in the mess of his thoughts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Since Vesemir was so adamant that the fae didn’t exist, Geralt has to search for clues to Jaskier’s true nature elsewhere. There are several bestiaries in the vast library of Kaer Morhen. One of them is bound to hold the answers Geralt seeks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His current theory is leaning towards a hybrid. It has to be something with enough human features and enough intelligence to pass as one. Or possibly Jaskier is a half-breed, with just a fraction of inhuman blood circulating through his veins. Just enough to grant him a long life but not enough to require a glamour strong enough to offset Geralt’s medallion. Damnit, witchers can </span>
  <em>
    <span>smell</span>
  </em>
  <span> most of the illusionary magic, and if even Vesemir wasn’t able to smell a glamour on Jaskier, it must be something inconspicuous enough to hide underneath the perfumes the bard likes to use. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, Geralt, did it hatch?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt snaps his head up to find Lambert leering at him from the doorway. “What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatever you’re brooding here, when will it hatch? We could use a hand today.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll go hunting tomorrow,” Geralt promises. He’s so close to the answer he can smell it. Just a few more pages. At the door, Lambert rolls his eyes at him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can’t believe that after all those scoldings Vesemir had to deal out to you for avoiding your readings you’d bury yourself in books now. Talk about delayed effects. If I kick your ass today, can I expect help with dinner in ninety years?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck off, Lambert,” Geralt mutters half-heartedly. It’s not like Lamber hasn’t done his own share of rolling around in hay when he was supposed to work. At least what Geralt does now is important. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m stealing your bard to help us if you won’t,” he hears Lambert’s threat echoing down the hall as the younger witcher stomps off but the words barely register. He turns the page and now… that’s interesting. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eyes glancing over the illustrations of dangerously alluring creatures, Geralt reads and reads. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s only the waning daylight and the animated voice of Ciri punctuated by her banging cutlery on the dining hall table that alerts him to how much time he’d spent in the library. His nose catches the smell of meat sizzling in fat and his stomach gives a mighty growl. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Great, now even your stomach speaks witcher.” Jaskier is holding up the doorway, face lit with a mischievous grin and the ends of his hair wet, curling around his ears. He smells so strongly of bathing salt as if he’d macerated in it, and knowing the bard’s fondness of long baths, he probably did. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Come to think of it, it’s been unusually quiet in the keep through the day. No chatter or half-formed melodies repeated over and over to disturb Geralt’s reading. Which is odd. What was Jaskier up to the whole day? Didn’t Lambert mention something about him? Geralt can’t remember. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“.... and I think you’ll like the dinner that awaits us, Ciri had looked a bit under the weather for the past few days so I’ve lent my personal touch to the feast tonight…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt isn’t listening. The last rays of the setting sun coming through the ornate library windows are glinting off something stuck to Jaskier’s ear. He comes closer and runs his fingers through the bard’s locks, fluffing it up. He feels his friend freeze momentarily at this unexpected display of affection and then Jaskier all but </span>
  <em>
    <span>beams</span>
  </em>
  <span> at him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I should have known that the way to a witcher’s heart is through his stomach,” he teases and then turns towards the dining hall, with a last glance over his shoulder, eyebrow raised in a clear </span>
  <em>
    <span>You coming?</span>
  </em>
  <span>, smile still crinkled around his eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt waits a few heartbeats before following, fist clenched around that shiny thing. It’s a tiny pearly scale, reflecting the light in the exact shade of Jaskier’s eyes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Geralt barely pays attention to the food he keeps mechanically shoveling into his mouth as he watches, transfixed, cataloguing every little crack in Jaskier’s facade, every little sign of his true nature shining through. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>How had he never noticed it before?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier’s laugh can’t be described with any other word than </span>
  <em>
    <span>musical</span>
  </em>
  <span>. The way he talks, how he chooses his words to rhyme wittily, how his voice rings out and his sentences dance up and down like a melody - there’s a song even when he isn’t singing, and possibly magic, too, with the way he keeps the attention of the whole room on himself, effortlessly, playfully, everyone gathered under his thrall. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He remembers all those late nights in the inns back on the road, Jaskier performing for an eager audience while smiles and coin rained on him, basking in the appreciation. How he usually ended the night by tumbling into the bed of some local maiden, charmed enough that all he had to do was wink at her and she would swoon. Geralt usually opted to stay up in their room, tending to his swords and his armour or just trying to meditate through the racket. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Looking back, it had probably saved him from being enchanted by the Siren’s song as well. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Across the table from him, Jaskier delicately picks a tiny bone from between his teeth and then he stretches, patting his stomach. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, it may be bad form to praise one’s own cooking but that was rather delicious.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Next to him, Yennefer claps sarcastically, but her smirk is fond. Cirilla wipes her mouth with a napkin like the noble lady she is and pipes up: “It was Mousesack’s favourite recipe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt knows that she misses her old tutor, along with her home, sometimes. Some of the shared sadness at the loss of their honourable friend shines briefly in Jaskier’s eyes before he smiles again, softly. “That’s why I made it, dearest. Anyway, I think I’ll play tonight for you. Any requests?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yenn’s eyes flash. “I want my song.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Several voices groan in unison, Jaskier’s the loudest. “Your vanity is the only thing that does not become you, my lady,” he grumbles. It might be a trick of the firelight, but he appears to be blushing, and his eyes shift away from Geralt’s narrowed gaze. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier has composed a song for the sorceress? Geralt thought the two had finally dropped their animosity and fostered a tentative friendship. Is there perhaps more? Jaskier lavishes his talent only on people he cares for, there was that Countess De Something…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anything than that maudlin ballad,” Lambert complains, expertly dodging the piece of bread Jaskier tosses at him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re just jealous you’re not immortalized in a song,” Yennefer fires back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He literally calls you a treasonous, unfair crook-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“-in my defense, it was written at a rather low point of my life and I was fairly drunk-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s a song about my devastating beauty and I’ll take it,” Yennefer is grinning now, before he turns and fixes her violet gaze on the only silent person at the table. “And our friend Geralt here hasn’t heard it yet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier next to her has his gracious, </span>
  <em>
    <span>performance</span>
  </em>
  <span> smile fixed firmly on his face, but the air in the room suddenly reeks with anxiety. Another clinch cementing Geralt’s suspicions. There must be Siren magic in that song if it made someone as proud as Yennefer like it, and the bard must be afraid of discovery. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, Geralt won’t be bewitched so easily. He makes to stand. “I’ll pass.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh you eternal grump-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s all right, Yennefer. We all know that Geralt isn’t particularly fond of fillingless pies.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s relief in Jaskier’s voice, but also resignation, and Yennefer unerringly latches onto the latter, like a ferret finding a crack in the henhouse, and pries. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nonsense,” she says briskly, “your voice is lovely. I’m sure Geralt will agree with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He might as well to take this opportunity and call Jaskier’s bluff. Just to see what happens. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, Yen. As if anyone would ever tolerate that caterwauling without the help of magical compulsion.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He deliberately holds Jaskier’s gaze as he says that, waiting for the flash of guilt that’s sure to appear there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>What he sees instead is a flash of hurt, so heartfelt and familiar that his own stomach twists with the very guilt he wanted to inflict. Jaskier’s face is the same it’s been on that damned mountain, so disappointed and weary and </span>
  <em>
    <span>old</span>
  </em>
  <span> despite no crows feet at all, and fuck, Geralt had sworn to never put that expression on his friend’s face again. He’d promised not to hurt him again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck you, Geralt,” Lambert, Vesemir, and - to Geralt’s horror - Cirilla too, cry out in unison. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that jealousy I smell on you, witcher?” Yennefer hisses. “The bard doesn’t have an ounce of magic and you know that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Arguing with Yennefer never led to anything good, but Geralt is too far gone now. “Perhaps he just hides it very well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Any good music,” Jaskier starts, and fuck, he sounds </span>
  <em>
    <span>pissed</span>
  </em>
  <span>, “is one part talent to nine parts hard work, and zero, and let me stress it, </span>
  <em>
    <span>zero parts fucking magic</span>
  </em>
  <span>, with your pardon my sweet lady,” he bows to Yennefer. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And that familiarity, that fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>sweet-talking</span>
  </em>
  <span> between the two friends who only just forgave him his own assholery couple of weeks ago just sets Geralt more on the edge. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just drop the act, Jaskier.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s no act! Nothing I can drop, you mule!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing? Like you weren’t dropping scales just before dinner? I found one in your hair.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something actually drops - Jaskier’s jaw. “That’s your problem?” He throws his arms wide. “So sorry I made a bit of mess of myself while cooking fish for your princess!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wait. “.... Fish?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Beer-battered fried fish, your friend Mousesack’s and Cirilla’s favourite dish, the one you just ate two servings of, yes, a fucking fish!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt looks down at his polished plate. He didn’t even notice what he was eating, so concentrated he was on looking for a proof to his theory. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which has just sizzled out like the oil under that fucking fish. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt resorts to the only response he knows - he flees. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Seriously, what the everloving - fine, that was enough foul language for one dinner and one princess, my apologies, Cirilla.” Jaskier looks around the table to meet the equally baffled stares of his friends. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, not equally. Vesemir, for one, has his forehead in his hands and keeps shaking his head. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think he believed you were a Siren,” the old keep master says eventually. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A second of silence - and then Lambert bursts out laughing. “Blast him, he did! He was reading the bestiary on sea creatures when I wanted him to go fishing with us!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier feels completely at sea - and no, he didn’t need this particular metaphor right now. “But… why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’d developed something of a fixed idea that you can’t be human.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hate to repeat myself but - why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Think, bard,” Eskel, the quiet one, speaks up for the first time. “He’s a witcher. Our lives are...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dangerous and full of scorn, I know,” Jaskier interrupts him, impatient with his slow and sparse way of talking. Then a realisation dawns on him, and he puts his hands on his hips. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s that noble self-loathing of his, isn’t it? Does he still think he’s a monster? That because no human could possibly love him, it must mean I can’t be human?” He feels incensed, the words tumbling out of him too fast. “Why does he still underestimate me so much?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer rolls her eyes. “You’re both absolutely hopeless,” she mutters into her cup. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Jaskier doesn’t care what the sorceress thinks, not now. He loves Geralt, he loves even his particular brand of stubbornness, but this time Geralt has taken it too far. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s going to show him just what kind of a creature he can be. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Werewolf</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next two days Geralt can’t leave his room without someone poking fun at him. </p><p>“Morning, sunshine! No time to <em> flounder</em>, we need to go out and hunt!” Lambert is awfully proud of himself, and Geralt can’t kick him because the younger witcher is already astride his horse and heading out of the gate. </p><p>“Let <em> minnow </em> if you need help with that,” Eskel calls at them when they come back several hours later, a deer and a pair of rabbits slung over their shoulders. </p><p>“Don’t you dare,” Geralt growls at Cirilla when she comes up to him with a gleam in her eye. “Why?” she asks innocently. “Would you have to put me in my <em> plaice </em>?”</p><p>He tries to complain to Vesemir. His old master, however, shows little sympathy. “I’d say that’s not your <em> sole </em> problem, boy.”</p><p>Dammit, he can’t even go and find comfort by talking to his mare, because he’d had the bright idea to name her after a fish, and now Roach judges him silently and all the better for it. </p><p>There’s no helping it, they won’t leave him be until he talks to Jaskier, so at the end of the second day, he finds himself in front of the bard’s room. </p><p>“Oh, is this an o-<em>fish</em>-ial apology?” Jaskier says with the brightest smile when he opens the door, and Geralt is half a second from breaking something, but he manages to rein it in. It must have played out on his face though because Jaskier’s grin turns into something gentler, shyer, and he takes pity on the witcher, as he always does, as easily as he breathes.</p><p>“Come in, you big oaf.”</p><p>Geralt knows he should apologise. He knows he should just bloody ask. But what if Jaskier himself doesn’t know? What if his human form is one of those spells that vanish as soon as someone points out their existence, the same way curses are broken by acknowledging their root? So many questions, broken down to useless words, chase themselves around Geralt’s head, banging at his skull from the inside like a whole flock of djinns caught in a clay bottle, and none can make it past the bottleneck of Geralt’s gritted teeth. </p><p>
  <em> Do you know you don’t age? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Do you know that I know? That you can tell me? That I wouldn’t hurt you? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Why do you always forgive me? </em>
</p><p>In the end, what makes it out is - “Why do you put up with me?”</p><p>Jaskier’s eyes soften, and he lays a hand on Geralt’s upper arm, squeezing lightly. The witcher should barely feel it, with the heavy fabrics he wears to ward off the cold, but somehow he’s aware of every inch of Jaskier touching him as if those layers separating their skin didn’t exist at all. </p><p>“There’s no ‘putting up’ involved, my dear witcher. Do you think I would’ve graduated Oxenfurt if I gave up every time someone said my singing was shit?”</p><p>“But you shouldn’t have to hear such things from a friend.”</p><p>“That’s my point, if you let me get to it,” Jaskier keeps talking and his hand is branding a spot of heat into the skin of Geralt’s arm, “that friendship is a learned skill, just like singing. I’m not going to give up on you just because you take a little bit longer to shake off the beginner’s mistakes.”</p><p>“I’ve been a shit friend for twenty years,” Geralt reminds him. “That’s hardly ‘a little bit’.”</p><p>“Ah, these things are relative,” Jaskier waves it off breezily, and Geralt just can’t help it, it’s too lighthearted for a human to think like that. A quarter of his entire life - if he’s lucky - and Jaskier passes it off as nothing? </p><p>“Maybe in another twenty years I’ll pick up enough witchering to be able to decapitate a baby drowner and in turn, I’ll rub off on you enough for you to be able to talk about your feelings.” </p><p>Jaskier is smiling at him, utterly oblivious to Geralt’s conundrum, and then he lets go of Geralt’s arm with a reassuring squeeze and turns towards the foot of his bed. A full-length mirror is standing there, rusted over but the frame still sturdy, who knows how many centuries back was the last time anyone had use of it but it doesn’t surprise Geralt that the vain songbird somehow ferreted it out and managed to move it to his room. </p><p>“Now with that out of the way, would you help me with this?” </p><p>Jaskier’s eyes meet his in the mirror as he puts another layer over the embroidered shirt he’s wearing. Unlike his usual doublets, this one laces in the back like a woman’s garment, a long row of delicate button crowned with a decorative clasp sitting at the nape. It’s fitted so snug that Geralt can feel the knobs of Jaskier’s spine, arching under his fingers as he pushes button after button through their respective loops. The cut flatters Jaskier’s slender frame and Geralt smothers the urge to run his palm over the expensive material, feel the curve just above the small of his back… that’s not what a friend does. Jaskier asked for help with dressing, not for being pawed at like a dressmaker’s mannequin. </p><p>He lifts his eyes to find Jaskier still holds them in the mirror, bottom lip caught between his teeth. It’s reddened and puffy when he releases it. “Well? How does it look?”</p><p>Geralt takes a step back. The room suddenly feels a lot colder. “Impractical but pretty.”</p><p>“In other words, a bard in a nutshell,” Jaskier nods with a satisfied grin. “Dinner is after all the one time of day a person should look their best.”</p><p>Geralt snorts. “Good luck keeping up courtly manners in Kaer Morhen.” </p><p>“When in wolf’s den, do as the wolves do?” Jaskier straightens his cuffs, his grin turning devious. “Don’t forget that Cirilla is the heiress to a throne. I’m not about to throw her to the wolves.”</p><p>“I’m starting to think the fishy puns weren’t the worst,” Geralt grumbles and feels strangely accomplished when Jaskier throws back his head and laughs. </p><p>“What do you know, maybe I’ll turn into a wolf one day, just to fit in.” He grabs a brush and fixes his hair, not noticing the way Geralt momentarily freezes.   </p><p>Or maybe noticing, after all. “What’s wrong, Geralt? Something’s been eating at you for days.”</p><p>Maybe it really was a joke. Maybe he really has no idea. </p><p>“It’s nothing.” And before the concern on Jaskier’s face can slide into disappointment and shutter over into practiced indifference, he blurts out the first thing that comes to his tongue. “Just worried about Spring. How the Path will be… with a child. How am I going to protect her?”</p><p>“Oh, Geralt.” Jaskier turns to him, so stunning he glows, clean and sweet-smelling and not a hair out of place. “You’ve managed to keep silly old me, the perfect sheltered lamb, well away from any harm for twenty years. I’m sure you’ll manage it again with someone actually good with a blade.”</p><p><em> Maybe you weren’t such a lamb as you seemed to be</em>, Geralt can’t help but think. <em> Maybe you were the wolf in sheep’s clothing, all that time. </em></p><p>And suddenly he knows what to do. His medallion is mute, as it would be around a werewolf, especially such an ancient one that Geralt can’t smell the blood curse in his veins, but the silver ornament still has its uses. </p><p>“Here,” he pulls the chain over his head. “Since you wanted to fit in.”</p><p>It looks like a friendly gesture. To let him wear the emblem of the School of the Wolf, to make him feel accepted. It’s what Jaskier wants even if he won’t say it aloud. And it grates at Geralt that it’s also a test… would Jaskier take it? Or would he recoil away from the silver, try to cushion his skin from the burn?</p><p>For a cold, crushing second Jaskier actually draws back. “Oh…. I couldn’t… I mean, it would clash with my colours terribly, and is it even allowed? I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble-”</p><p>“It would… please me,” Geralt pushes. Tries not to growl and fails.  </p><p>“Oh, sweet Melitele...” Jaskier breathes out, eyes wide and shining in his flushed face - and then he grabs the medallion with his bare hands and puts it around his neck, pulling away his collar and slipping it under his jacket and shirt to rest on the skin of his breast.</p><p>Geralt is torn between disappointment, relief, and jealousy of his own medallion. </p><p>He can just about make out the outline of the pendant under the luxurious fabric hugging Jaskier’s chest. On a whim, he covers it with his hand, feeling the shape and the fast beating, oh so human-sounding heart beating beneath it. There’s no flinch of pain, no smell of burning flesh. </p><p>The call for dinner echoes from the hall below them. </p><p>Jaskier’s hand covers his own and his eyes are searching for a moment before they crinkle in a smile. “Thank you, Geralt. This means a lot to me.”</p><p>And then he’s slipping past him and out of the room, light on his feet and with a cocky sway to his steps, and Geralt follows and tries not to look at the equally snug fit of Jaskier’s trousers over his ass.</p><p>He fails, of course. </p><p>Which is just as well, because otherwise, Jaskier would have to work much harder at concealing his smirk. </p><p>Making his idiot witcher believe he was a werewolf, even for a little while, was the best idea he ever had. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Higher vampire</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>For the next step in his plan, Jaskier accosts Vesemir when the old witcher seems to be in a good mood and Geralt is conveniently outside caught in a screaming match with a frustrated Ciri who struggles to wrap her head around Signs. Teenagers. Both of them, really.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell me, good sir, what do witchers know about vampires?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Bruxas?” Vesemir scratches his beard. “Don’t you already have a song where Geralt fights one? Though you did get the details wrong, now when I think of it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And that right there is a great point too because Geralt never gives me any details, but it’s not what I’m asking now,” Jaskier fiddles with his hands. “I’ll ask specifically - are there things about vampires that Geralt doesn’t know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The old witcher looks at him askance. “You shouldn’t be starting shit, bard.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he’s seen straight through him. But Jaskier doesn’t want to back down. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t start it if you recall,” he pouts, “but I’m sure as hell going to finish it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vesemir appears to be debating with himself for a moment and then he sighs. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but for the sake of the sanity of everyone stuck in this keep, why won’t you just fuck him?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier sputters. Here he thought Vesemir was the most dignified of the lot, but apparently, after four centuries, all manners are gone with the wind!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“While I’d love to,” he says, and misses the sarcasm by a mile - because it looks like everyone and their aunt knows he’s hopelessly in love with the witcher, except for Geralt, and Jaskier had poured his heart out in so many songs that denial is a moot point by now - “Geralt doesn’t want me like that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And here I thought out of the two of you, you were the one with the brain cell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier wishes Vesemir is right about Geralt’s supposed feelings, oh how he does. He’s very good at wishing, if he had just one try with a djinn at his disposal right now, Valdo Marx would get to live. But he’s better than that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He finally wants me for a friend. I’ve waited twenty years for that. I’m not about to be a choosing beggar.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Besides,” he adds when Vesemir’s face starts to mellow with something dangerously close to pity, “it’s mighty fun to rile him up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hold onto that when he takes your joke seriously and runs you through with a silver sword,” Vesemir thankfully drops the pity in favour of exasperated amusement. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, about that,” Jaskier grins conspiratorially, “does silver actually harm vampires?”</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometime later Jaskier lounges comfortably at the dining hall table, having put his feet up as soon as Vesemir left, and lets his eyes trace the battered ornaments on the high vaulted ceiling, blackened by a decades-worth layer of soot. This is how a very frustrated princess finds him, in the midst of a very ostentatious Doing Nothing, when she barges into the hall, the sodden edges of her skirts bunched in small fists shaking with rage and trailing wet snow everywhere as she stomps. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not fair! Why do I have to take his shit?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier lifts a commiserating eyebrow. “I take it that Geralt is not a very good teacher?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The fu-” Ciri remembers her manners in the last second - “no, he’s…. I guess he’s not that bad.” She throws herself on the chair opposite Jaskier and sprawls her arms over the table with a heartfelt sigh, the very picture of drama. Jaskier is proud of his influence.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s just - my magic works differently, and it’s not worse or better, just different, and Yen’s been trying to explain it to him but he’s-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not listening to anything you have to say and convinced his way is the best? Yup, sounds like Geralt to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She lifts her head and peers at him balefully. “How did </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> take it for twenty years?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Jaskier knows a cue when it falls into his lap. “Ciri, my darling,” he sits up, setting his boots back on the floor, “do you want to get back at him?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The immediate spark in her eyes is exactly the answer he wanted. It looks like he got himself the ally he needs. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Contrary to what everyone believes, Geralt knows when he fucked up. His life would be vastly improved if he was able to know that </span>
  <em>
    <span>before</span>
  </em>
  <span> he fucks up, but sadly, clairvoyance was never included in witcher mutations. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Teaching is hard. He’s determined to do his best by Ciri, and the more he pushes himself, the less of the desired effect it seems to have. He doesn’t want to make mistakes in this. What did Jaskier say the other day? That a mistake makes the best teacher? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe his words haven’t been aimed as much at Ciri as they were at Geralt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pity that Jaskier, who amongst them is the most proficient in formal teaching, as evidenced by packed lecture halls and rows of enthusiastic students every year at Oxenfurt, doesn’t have the knowledge that Cirilla needs to learn. Well, he still teaches her music and literature in her spare time, determined not to let her run wild in the witcher fortress, but he can’t teach her the control of her magic. That much Geralt is certain of. That whatever is the root of Jaskier’s puzzling longevity, it’s not his magic. If an absolute absence of Chaos on a person had a smell, it would smell of lavender and honeysuckle, Jaskier’s favourite perfume. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can smell said perfume in the library at the end of the corridor now, even through the heavy oaken door, which might be Jaskier’s passive-aggressive way of pointing out that the rest of the keep’s inhabitants should increase the frequency of their baths. Come to think of it, one of Ciri’s insults she threw at him in her frustration was “you smelly swamp-scourger” (and he should have words with Jaskier about teaching Cirilla alliteration) and they might have a point. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fine. Even if it doesn’t help to calm him down, clean and mad is better than mad and filthy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier has obviously locked himself inside the library to compose, if the way he’s going through a progression of the same three chords on repeat is any indication. Geralt knows how prickly the bard gets when his inspiration gets stuck, and he’s had enough of dealing with frustrated family members today. (Family. He likes the sound of it.) So he doesn’t attempt to peek in, just shouts “I’m going to take a bath” to anyone in earshot and nobody in particular, hoping it would make at least one person happy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>From behind the door, Jaskier acknowledges this with a loud </span>
  <em>
    <span>thwang</span>
  </em>
  <span> across the strings, and Geralt hurries up the stairs to avoid any more confrontation. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is why he gets the shock of the century (of this one, at least) when he opens the door to his room to find Jaskier inside, already pouring a bucket of water into a large pot in the fireplace to heat it up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What- what are you doing here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier barely looks up, concentrated on heaving another bucket of water over the pot lid. “Preparing your bath. Good intentions deserve every encouragement.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Geralt would enjoy the snark thrown in to mask genuine affection, because he knows that Jaskier knows that Geralt likes to be doted on but hates to acknowledge it, if it weren’t for the fact that mere minutes ago, Jaskier was down in the library. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How did you get here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier does look up at that, something like guilt creeping into his look - </span>
  <em>
    <span>finally</span>
  </em>
  <span> - and chewing at his lip. “You never lock your door. I’m sorry I didn’t ask-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, not that.” There is no way Jaskier could have sneaked past him on the stairs, not without Geralt seeing him, hearing him, smelling him. Not unless he can move through the shadows, impossibly fast.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How did you get here from the library?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” Jaskier’s face clears from his confusion and he smiles, “up those numerous stairs, of course, and with a detour to the kitchens to gather these very heavy buckets, and it’s really nice of you to acknowledge the tremendous effort I’ve put into your well-being. Have you ever considered to install some plumbing in this fortress?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s not what Geralt wants to hear. But… there’s no lie in Jaskier’s words. His heart beats steadily, if a little faster with the exertion of manipulating the heavy buckets. There’s no skip in its rhythm to betray falseness. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So it must be normal for him, moving impossibly fast when he needs to. So normal that he doesn’t think it worth mentioning, and probably assumes everyone has noticed that already. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But what kind of a creature can do that? Jaskier is not a wraith, not a nature spirit, not a bloodthirsty bruxa... wait. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He remembers something. Back on their run from Nilfgaard, during the tedious trek up North, one night he and Ciri had to seek out shelter in the home of Geralt’s old friend Regis. He and the witcher met many years ago, on an adventure that Jaskier didn’t fail to immortalise in a song, and Geralt knew that the higher vampire would never hurt either him or his ward. It was a brief encounter - Regis helped them by distracting Nilfgaardian soldiers and hid them until the immediate danger passed - and the next morning, they were back on the road. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Regis had always treated him with kindness. Once, Geralt would assume that it was a kind but condescending benevolence - Geralt couldn’t hurt him if he tried, even if he succeeded against his inhuman speed and stealth and managed to slice his head off with a silver sword coated in vampire oil, the higher vampire would be merely incapacitated. Out of commission for a couple of decades, but what’s that for an immortal? It was only later when Geralt realised that Regis was simply being a good friend. This type of motivation was always the hardest to understand for the witcher. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d thanked the vampire the morning before they set out again, before dawn, hoping to make the most of the head start. Life on the road was lonely and friendships sparse, and that was before he was hunted like a prized prey.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t mention it, witcher. Besides, you’re about to again meet an old friend, soon,” Regis told him then, somewhat cryptically, and shooed them off. Geralt hadn’t understood till they, not two days later, had run into Jaskier.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It turned out Jaskier had been following the rumours about Nilfgaardian soldiers, hoping they would eventually lead him to the witcher, and coincidentally had visited Regis’ cottage only a couple days before Geralt and Ciri did. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Looking back, Geralt wonders how much of a coincidence that really was. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>An old friend</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Regis had said, and Geralt assumed he’d meant </span>
  <em>
    <span>Geralt’s old friend.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>What if he really meant - one of his own? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Geralt, dear? Something interesting in the void you’re staring into?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It would explain so much. The agelessness, the perpetual youth, the recklessness in the face of danger - of course, a higher vampire can’t be killed by anything save for another higher vampire. The expensive tastes, the love for carnal pleasures, vampires are a sophisticated, highly educated and utterly spoiled lot-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do I need to borrow Yennefer’s xenovox to get through into that skull of yours?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oi! Someone’s at the gate!” Lambert yells somewhere outside, and Geralt snaps out of his daze when the creak of hinges and rattle of chains shakes the still air in the keep. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’ll confront Jaskier later. Someone is coming into the keep despite the locking spell Vesemir put onto the gate, someone’s pulling down the drawbridge with magic sharp and foreign enough to scratch at the back of Geralt’s throat, and he needs to protect Ciri. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get Ciri somewhere safe,” he commands, turns on his heels and runs. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jaskier blinks bemusedly at the witcher’s back disappearing through the door in his mad sprint down to the gate. He’s pretty sure his ruse worked splendidly. Pity he can’t move fast as lightning for real, though, because whatever is about to happen at the gate will be epic and definitely song-worthy. He grabs his notebook and dashes after Geralt, pausing only on the first floor to turn the key in the library door lock. Keeping Ciri somewhere safe, check. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stumbles out into the yard just in time to see the gate crack open and a lone figure of a man leading a heavily laden horse leisurely stroll through as if he owns the place. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dirty armor, two big scary swords, yellow slitted eyes that look over the ensemble of swords pointed at him with a slight smirk parting the black beard adorning his face.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Coën! You bastard, I didn’t know you were coming this winter!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier is excited. A new witcher! More stories to hear and more songs to write! As the others lower their weapons and the air in front of Yen’s window stops to shimmer with magic ready to strike, he bounds forward, executing a perfect courtly bow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jaskier the Bard, at your service. I didn’t know witchers could magically open bespelled gates.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The witcher, to his surprise, bows back with a practiced flourish. “Coën of Poviss, at yours. Different schools of the Witcher order teach different magic.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier’s excitement turns into a positive delight. A witcher with knightly manners who actually answers his questions! What a day!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coën spreads his arms to endure pats on the shoulders and friendly shoves from Lambert and Eskel. “What’s a bard doing here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt takes a step forward, the only person in the courtyard whose stiff shoulders and set jaw didn’t get the memo about the threat being over. “He’s not dangerous.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coën sniffs the air in Jaskier’s direction and snorts. “Unless he can annoy someone to death, I don’t see how he could be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier reconsiders his opinion on the newcomer. Certainly more civilised than the witchers of Kaer Morhen, but the same rude lot. Well, at least he’s going to provide more audience to the final stage of his prank. Geralt is going to accuse him and make an ass of himself in public, again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s standing right here,” he grouses. “And what’s that about me being dangerous, Geralt? You know I wouldn’t hurt any of you!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt shrinks on himself, as much as that’s possible for someone as tall, wide, and rock-solidly built as him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wouldn’t is not the same as couldn’t,” Geralt says quietly, “but I trust you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, fuck. Vesemir was right - Jaskier shouldn’t have started shit. Because now his plan is backfiring in a completely unexpected way. Fuck Geralt, really, for being so damn </span>
  <em>
    <span>noble</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, here we go again-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shut up, Lambert-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Someone care to explain-?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier doesn’t want to see Geralt embarrassed in front of his friends anymore. Not when he is this close to being </span>
  <em>
    <span>accepted</span>
  </em>
  <span> even as a damn vampire. He has to find a way out of this hole he’s dug himself into, fast. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh!” he exclaims, high-pitched with relief when an idea hits him. “I have to go get Cirilla, the poor dear is still locked in the library!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he makes his way back inside - and thanks to all that’s blessed, Geralt joins him. Jaskier can hear the cogs turning in that beloved but infuriating head. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ciri’s in the library?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, yes, she stormed in earlier, clearly angry about something, so I gave her my lute and told her to practice scales, always helps me-” he babbles on. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh.” Some more cog turning. “You didn’t happen to give her your coat?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier beams. At least he’s in love with the smart one. “Indeed! Poor darling, her own was completely soaked, she’ll catch a cold before she’ll pick up any of your magic, really, Geralt. She also told me you smelled so I went ahead and started that bath...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally, the last of the tension leaves Geralt’s shoulders, and he quirks a small smile. There’s still a bit of puzzlement when he glances over at the bard, and Jaskier would really like to know what’s his witcher’s problem, but from now on, he vows to only make fun of him in private. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Dragon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Cursing the day one’s parents or guardians gave you away to become a witcher is par for the course in any given witcher’s life. Everyone has bad days. But usually, you bemoan just your own misery and don’t give a fuck about others.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cursing the day Coën joined their ranks is definitely a new experience for Geralt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s nothing outright bad about the Griffin, per se. He’s not so mouthy that you’d want to hit him (like Lambert), doesn’t reek of goat (like Eskel), and doesn’t cheat at Gwent too much (gods may help Lambert if he ever drags that Cat of his to Kaer Morhen again). He’s putting in his fair share of work, teaches Ciri some finer aspects of sword fight, Yennefer likes to pick apart the advanced magic in his Signs, he’s a good fellow to have in the keep during the hard winter and everyone likes him. He’s all right. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course, since day one, Jaskier is all over him like a hummingbird over a honeyed flower, pestering him for all kinds of stories. And Coën, the bastard, keeps encouraging him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’re all gathered in the dining hall, a roaring fire in the grand fireplace making the snowstorm raging behind the barred windows just a distant memory. Vesemir rolled out a barrel of ale and Eskel put forth a demijohn of something resembling vodka, which made everyone suspicious of what exactly he’d been doing in the laboratory when he claimed them to ‘stock up on the potions’. The company is merry, the spirits are high, and Geralt would able to enjoy it more if Jaskier wasn’t perched on the arm of Coën’s chair, a feeble inch away from sitting in his lap, and laughing every few moments at something the Griffin says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier’s laugh is such a pleasing, melodic, contagious, and soul-soaring sound to hear. It was on very few and rare occasions since they found each other again that Geralt was able to entice such reaction in Jaskier, and he always keeps it in his mind and by his heart like a tiny but precious treasure. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Coën makes it look so fucking easy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re making that face again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt doesn’t know at what point Yennefer has moved her chair to sit directly next to him but now she’s there, her hair a dark river glinting in the firelight, eyes deep like a wishing well and cheeks flushed with heat and alcohol. Her beauty is magnetising and Geralt wishes he could see more behind it, more than just superficial attraction. But things are what they are, and they both know it. He’s lucky to call her his friend. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What face?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jaskier calls it the scary face.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Again, Geralt wonders when exactly have the sorceress and the bard became friends, and if he should be worried. And why he should be worried in the first place. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s just my face.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Suppose that’s true.” Yennefer is twirling a lock of her hair between her fingers. She looks relaxed, comfortable, and a little bored. A bored sorceress is never a good sign. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s funny is that you’re now giving Coën the exact same looks Jaskier’s been giving me during that trek up the mountains. On the dragon hunt.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What? Before the dragon hunt, almost as long as he knew her, up to their sudden and inexplicable amicability that Geralt still doesn’t understand, Jaskier was always very vocal about his distrust and fear of the sorceress. Yes, he admired her beauty and appeal, but he resented her person. Geralt assumes that’s why Jaskier kept poking Yen with insults - to mask his fear, his natural reaction to her twisted power. She’s danger incarnate, of course, any sane man would be afraid of her. Jaskier resented her because he feared her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And now Yen insists that Geralt looks at Coën the same way? It can’t be. Geralt isn’t afraid of the other witcher. Like the others, he seems to think that Jaskier is a completely normal, mortal human. He wouldn’t hurt him… Even if he figures out what Jaskier was, he’s a guest here just like Jaskier, and he wouldn’t break the laws of hospitality. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe he did figure it out. Maybe Jaskier has told him. Maybe that’s why they’re so…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And there’s that face again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nonsense, Yen. I’m not afraid of him. He’s not dangerous.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her full, sweet lips are parted in puzzlement as she looks at him, eyes widening and then narrowing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You really think Jaskier was </span>
  <em>
    <span>scared</span>
  </em>
  <span> of me, back then?” She shakes her head. “You, Geralt of Rivia, are clueless. I wonder what Jaskier sees in you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span> A friend. One of many he has. Because he’s likable and kind and overflowing with affection for everyone. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Apparently not a much as he sees in Coën.” And fuck, where did this come from? He didn’t mean to say that aloud. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, this is good,” Yennefer laughs and picks up a bottle of wine from a previously empty spot on the floor. Geralt recognises a rare vintage from Toussaint cellars. Good to know her magic is recovering. Not so good that her penchant for mischief gets to tag along. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe because Coën puts more words into his answers than just grunts and curses.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hmmm,” Geralt makes her point. She rolls her eyes and refills her cup. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s how you make friends, Geralt.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“With pretty words?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“With </span>
  <em>
    <span>conversation</span>
  </em>
  <span>, for starters.” She offers him the rest of the bottle and he takes it. He needs to be drunker if he’s to survive this evening. Even though he shouldn’t… what if Yen is right, what is Geralt’s gut instinct is somehow playing out on his face, what if his gut instinct is right and Coën is buttering up Jaskier just to trap him for coin…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cool, soft hand passes across his forehead, tucking loose strands of hair behind his ear. He shifts his stare to meet Yen’s eyes, her gaze searching and intent - and it takes him way too long to notice the mercurial glint in them, the press of magic behind his temples. She’s skimming the surface of his mind and whatever she finds there brings a smirk to her perfect, infuriating lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks away, appraising the two sitting so cosy by the fire. Sharing stories, moonshine and laughter like the best of friends. As if one of them isn’t a monster slayer, and the other isn’t… whatever the hell he is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t worry, Geralt. Your bard is safe with the Griffin,” Yennefer says, and of course she would try to placate him, she doesn’t know about Jaskier’s secret - but then she adds:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Even though I heard they have nothing against taking contracts on dragons.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>What??</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s true. Griffins did take contracts on dragon hunts in the past. Does it mean…. It wouldn’t be the first dragon shapeshifter Geralt met, he didn’t recognise that Borch had been the dragon they were after until the last moment, and - Geralt has definitely too much to drink, his head is reeling. “Why… why would you say that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No reason,” Yennefer smiles beatifically, snatches back her bottle and saunters off. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Jaskier? Have you met Borch before he tried to hire me for the dragon hunt?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier blinks and scowls against the too-bright daylight. He stayed up late last night after the feast, writing down his notes for a song about the war with mages and destruction of Kaer Seren, the original home of the Griffins. His head is pounding and he’s had entirely too little sleep. He falls back into the pillows, eyes squeezed shut. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck, Geralt, is there a reason you’re in my room at such ungodly hour?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s almost noon.” There’s a thud of something heavy against the small table beside Jaskier’s bed, and a clatter of several smaller things. “I brought you something for your stomach.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The smell of food hits Jaskier’s nose now, warm and greasy and heavenly, and his stomach rolls a little. Whatever Eskel put into his moonshine, it seems to be on par with witcher potions - unsuitable for humans. He rolls over and picks up the cup of herbal tea at least, inhaling the hot fragrant steam with a little grateful moan. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, thank heavens. I always forget it’s not my final year in Oxenfurt. I’m far too old for drinking like that anymore.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beside his bed, Geralt makes a funny sound. Jaskier looks up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, what was that about Borch? You meant Borch Three Jackdaws, that knight who was actually a dragon? The one who traveled with two beautiful warriors?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, but did Jaskier remember </span>
  <em>
    <span>those.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.” Geralt drags a chair to Jaskier’s bed to sit down and Jaskier shudders as the screech of wood upon stone wreaks havoc on his hungover ears. “Did you know he was a dragon?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier pauses to take Geralt in, properly, and nearly chokes on the next mouthful of tea to smother a sudden urge to laugh. Geralt’s usually stony face is forcibly relaxed, something that must be his idea of a </span>
  <em>
    <span>conversational </span>
  </em>
  <span>smile fixed on his lips, and he very visibly tries to appear nonchalant and just having a meaningless chat. The result looks physically painful. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So, a dragon. That’s a new one. Jaskier almost regrets he’s not the one who came up with it. Personally, he was thinking about going for selkie next, Coën has a nice seal skin packed amongst his belongings, a skin that he bought in Poviss and intends to make into a pair of boots over the winter, Jaskier would have found a way to pay him back. But a dragon is even better. Whoever put that idea into Geralt’s head deserves a medal. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For now, though, there’s been a direct question and he knows Geralt can detect lies (and hates to be lied to), so he merely says:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nope, never met him before. Why, did he know my songs? You must know that my reputation precedes me, my dear witcher.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt snorts at the boast. He stands up and moves to the window to crack it open and let in a bit of fresh air. Jaskier huddles back under his blanket to hide from the onslaught of frosty draught but it does help in easing his headache. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought he might have known your parents, perhaps.” Geralt speaks with his back turned, now, but Jaskier still doesn’t risk a giggle. Witcher hearing is formidable even after a night of drinks and debauchery. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know, he probably did,” he drawls, enjoying the stiffening of Geralt’s shoulders. “I mean, he posed as a knight, and my parents are minor and slightly destitute but still nobility. They could’ve met at a ball somewhere. Why, did he talk about it? Sweet Melitele, he wasn’t sharing any embarrassing stories about little me, was he?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.” Now Geralt is chuckling, and Jaskier can join without suspicion. “It’s just… you two seemed comfortable around each other. I thought you perhaps had something in common.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier has to give Geralt some credit here, he makes it all sound so innocent, and yet he can clearly see the point his roundabout questions are aiming at. If Jaskier really was a dragon and trying to hide it, he would be very flustered by now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As it is, he merely wriggles to sit higher against the pillows and grabs the bowl of gruel peppered with crispy bacon, his hunger having won against nausea. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He was a nice enough fellow for a knight - and I guess for a dragon, too,” he says between spoonfuls of his breakfast. “Besides, I don’t need to have a long and meaningful history with someone in order to enjoy and long and meaningful conversation with them, Geralt.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hmmm.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then: “You do talk a lot. I wonder when Coën’s skull will burst from the overload.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt is being kind of an asshole, but he’s a breakfast-to-bed-bearing asshole, so Jaskier decides to forgive him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why, yes, he’s very well mannered for a witcher. A decent fellow, really.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you know Griffins have nothing against contracts on dragons?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something clenches in Jaskier’s chest, a little kernel of hope that was about to bloom and now curls back on itself in defeat. Of course Geralt isn’t jealous. He’s merely trying to protect his friend, dragon or not. It’s so noble, and Jaskier would damn well prefer if Geralt was less noble and more fucking observant of what’s right in front of him, but such is his lot in life. Geralt doesn’t want him, so of course, he’s not jealous of him. Pity, that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, then I suppose I won’t be telling him the story of the hunt in much detail. We don’t want any dragon-hunters to know about the last golden hatchling, do we?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt turns to him then, something gentle around the set of his mouth. “No, we don’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you for the breakfast,” he says for lack of better words. Words he can’t say, words like </span>
  <em>
    <span>thank you for looking out for me even though you’re doing it for absolutely wrong reasons.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He should get out of bed now that he’s finished eating, and possibly dunk his head in a bucket of frigid water. He still reeks of stale sweat and ale. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Technically a lunch.” Geralt gathers the empty bowl, the spoon, and the cup, looking as if he’s holding back some words of his own, too, and the air in the room is suddenly rather cold, and awkward. Well, closing the damn window will solve the first, and for the second, Jaskier blurts out-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know I am not interested in Coën, don’t you?” And fuck, </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck</span>
  </em>
  <span>, now Geralt is frozen in place, not even blinking, scramble for something, quick- </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I understand you might want to protect him from me, some little brother feelings and all that, and I acknowledge I have a certain reputation, but really, I’m just talking his head off for stories.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt unflexes his jaw with an audible </span>
  <em>
    <span>creak</span>
  </em>
  <span> and breathes out. “No, little lark. He doesn’t need protecting.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier grins at the nickname. He likes hearing it in Geralt’s voice, even though the witcher means nothing by it, it’s still nice. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good.” And it feels as if something has cleared between them, even though nobody said what they really wanted to say. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then, just as about Geralt is to shut the door behind him, Jaskier thinks better of his good intentions and decides, fuck it, he’s a bard, he’s entitled to some fun in life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Geralt? Could you leave the spoon here? I might want to take some medicine for my hangover later.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt frowns. “You have a travel spoon in your bag.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier grins. It’s a little wolfish. Maybe it comes with the territory. “I know dear. But I like this one. It’s so… shiny.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t miss the muttered </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck</span>
  </em>
  <span> as Geralt slams the door shut behind himself, and finally allows himself to fall back into bed in a fit of laughter. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Succubus</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Geralt has to do something, otherwise he might not survive the winter. There’s only so much teasing a witcher can bear before he takes himself out into the blizzard to meet a quick and painless death. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s nothing to it. He’s going to get Jaskier somewhere private and just bloody ask. Either he will learn the truth and be able to smooth things out with his best friend, or - well, there’s always the blizzard. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not that hard, is it? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Do you know you don’t age, and why?</span>
  </em>
  <span> Eight words. Easy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except that’s about seven words more than the amount that ever came easy to Geralt, so he faces it like any other kind of a challenge: with conscientious preparation. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Normally, when he goes to face a creature, said preparation includes sharpening his swords, stocking up on potions, and making sure his armor is in a good shape. None of which he hopes he will need now - Jaskier might be a creature, but it’s still </span>
  <em>
    <span>Jaskier.</span>
  </em>
  <span> But Geralt’s hands still itch with the need to prepare </span>
  <em>
    <span>somehow</span>
  </em>
  <span>, so in the end he splashes his face in warm water, attempts to comb out the worst lumps from his hair, and puts on his least-smelly shirt. Jaskier likes talking to nice-looking people, and Geralt doesn’t want to look like a monster and scare Jaskier off before their conversation gets to the important part. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t dwell on the fact that Jaskier was always perfectly willing to discuss the meaning of life while Geralt was covered in whatever recently slain monster’s guts. It’s preparation, it’s a ritual, it matters. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And because Jaskier is fond of words, instead of a sword, Geralt packs a book. A journal, more specifically. One that Jaskier gave him years ago, a little leather-bound thing, to write down adventures he’d had during the times his and Jaskier’s paths took them apart. Jaskier always wanted details. Geralt eventually developed a habit of writing into it, terse, matter-of-fact entries, number of drowner heads, number of coin. Sketches of landscapes and doodles of the monsters, when he was bored. Random thoughts, when the silence became more of an unbearable burden than a welcome respite. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He leafs through it as he walks the short distance to Jaskier’s room, hoping that perhaps amongst the pages he’ll find some key to the bard’s nature, some observation he jotted down unconsciously and which would only now reveal its true significance. But there’s nothing. Jaskier was around most of the time, one of the few constants in Geralt’s life, his annoying chatter just as inevitable as the rain, and Geralt now finds that he never thought to write down anything about the man he took for granted. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s vaguely disappointing, but nothing he can do about it now. This book was meant </span>
  <em>
    <span>for </span>
  </em>
  <span>Jaskier, not </span>
  <em>
    <span>about</span>
  </em>
  <span> Jaskier, and Geralt doesn’t need a doodle on paper to recall his friend’s smile. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But as he’s turning the pages back to the beginning, he realises Jaskier is somehow present in the journal after all. As he’s about to close it, something yellow slips out and flutters to the floor. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt picks it up and turns it in his fingers. It’s a small bundle of flowers, tiny and sun-bright yellow, dry and pressed thin and brittle from their prolonged stay between the journal’s pages. He recalls picking them up. It was a few days after he came down from the mountain and Jaskier wasn’t waiting around like he usually did, when the reality of what he’d done finally settled on him and he found he couldn’t write in his journal any more. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then, before he can put them back, the door to Jaskier’s room cracks open and out peeks the curious face of his friend. “Geralt, is that y- oh sweet Melitele.” Jaskier stares at the tiny blossoms dwarfed in Geralt’s hand. “Are those buttercups?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt looks down. He doesn’t know shit about flowers that aren’t herbs either for healing or for potions. He shrugs. “They’re dry,” he says, neither agreeing nor denying, the safest option. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Silly, of course I wouldn’t expect them fresh in the middle of winter.” He steps back into the room, waving Geralt to follow. Looks around, a little self-consciously, passing his hand through his hair and ruffling them before fidgeting with the laces around his collar. Geralt has never seen him this flustered. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t believe you brought me flowers,” Jaskier laughs, a little short of breath, and - oh. Geralt supposes he did, didn’t he? So he nods. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you - you cleaned up,” Jaskier waves his hand up and down in Geralt’s direction, and it’s shaking a little. “What - what’s going on?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe the best would be to cut right to the chase. “I want to ask you something,” Geralt says, gravelly, and takes a deep breath-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>-which is promptly punched out of him when Jaskier breathes out “The answer is </span>
  <em>
    <span>yes</span>
  </em>
  <span>” and then grabs Geralt’s collar, pulls him to himself, and kisses him squarely on the mouth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt is stunned, shocked into immobility - but Jaskier moves for both of them. His hands are everywhere. On Geralt’s cheek, tenderly skimming over an old scar. Against his chest, burning through the fabric of his shirt. On the back of his head, sliding into his hair and tugging. He gasps, and Jaskier swallows it down, licks at his lips and presses in, in, closer, deep. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt should push him away and talk this - this misunderstanding - out. But his mouth takes over his hands and he hums, closing his eyes. He tilts his head to offer better angle to Jaskier’s clever tongue, wraps his arms around him and holds on. He burns, and Jaskier’s mouth is sweet cool water. He aches, and Jaskier’s kisses are the salvation.   </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fucking finally,” Jaskier murmurs against his mouth, and Geralt hums his assent even though he has no idea why, it just feels right. He grabs a handful of rich brown hair, slides his mouth along the edge of a smooth jaw and licks along the vein pulsing rapidly under his tongue, and fuck. This is what he should have done back on that mountain. Now he knows it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier groans and pulls away - </span>
  <em>
    <span>too soon</span>
  </em>
  <span> - and Geralt feels a little drunk, but too little drunk, the kind where he wants to keep drinking. He bites his lip, tingling from kisses, and dares to open his eyes. Jaskier is leaning away a bit, one palm braced against his chest, the other cupping his face, and his eyes are so bright, so fond-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you waiting for?” he teases, with that smile Geralt never wants to lose sight of, and Geralt just shakes his head mutely and buries his face back in the crook of Jaskier’s neck. There’s a question he wanted to ask but he can’t remember it now. Not when Jaskier smells like this, right here in Geralt’s arms, where he belongs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thinks briefly of Coën sitting so close, </span>
  <em>
    <span>too close</span>
  </em>
  <span> to Jaskier, all the fucking time, and he tightens his arms around the bard, his inner wolf growling. Jaskier laughs, happy and loud, and Geralt did this. </span>
  <em>
    <span>He</span>
  </em>
  <span> made Jaskier laugh. And if Jaskier’s wriggling and insistent tugging towards his bed is anything to go by, he can so so much more. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He walks them to the bed, stumbling over Jaskier’s feet when they’re almost there. Or maybe Jaskier tripped him? That would be a neat trick. Jaskier falls backward into the bed, his hair a mussed halo around his head, and pulls Geralt down by the front of his shirt. Geralt crawls over him, like a beast following a scent. Jaskier rucks up his shirt and slips his hands under it, every single fingertip sparking fire under Geralt’s skin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kissing Jaskier is so good it’s addictive. Geralt drinks him in like spiced wine, a kiss for every day he wasted. He should stop, he thinks. There’s something he was meant to do before all this. Jaskier kisses him again and it doesn’t matter. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He lowers himself down onto his elbows, bringing their bodies flush together and grinds his hips down, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>gods</span>
  </em>
  <span>, the friction feels amazing. Jaskier gasps and arches up to meet him, the spike of arousal in his scent sharp and overwhelming. Geralt pushes him back down and lifts himself only enough to yank at the lacing of his trousers, wriggling out of them impatiently while Jaskier makes short work of both their shirts. He kicks off his smalls, hooks his fingers under the waist of Jaskier’s trousers, and then he just holds himself there for a moment, admiring the sight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Getting dragged through the mud by Ciri seems to have had an effect on the bard after all, his arms are lightly but firmly muscled, his chest more defined. The dark hair there extends into a narrowing line crossing a flat stomach, the usual softness of it gone - no hibernating creature ever puts on fat during the winter, not even the wolves of Kaer Morhen. He licks along the trail leading into the open vee of Jaskier’s trousers and then just rips them open, too drunk on the scent to care. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Gods, Geralt, you’re killing me, come here-” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier is shuffling up on the bed, and then he snatches Geralt around the waist and rolls them over, surprisingly strong. Their legs tangle together, the pressure of Jaskier’s thigh against his hard cock just perfect, and Jaskier grins down at him, breathless and smug and exhilarated. He gives an encouraging roll of his hips and Geralt doesn’t need to be told twice to take his pleasure. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier is so warm and enticing above him, the skin over his collarbones hot and thin, bruising so easily. Geralt bites there and works his tongue, drawing blood to the surface, long enough to leave a mark. He knows how Jaskier likes to wear his shirts and doublets, open and unlaced. Jaskier trembles and whimpers above him and it’s the best music he ever produced, at least to Geralt’s ears.     </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They move together, in a rhythm that feels so natural as if they always knew how to be like this, how to drive the other absolutely wild with want. The air around them is permeated with the smell of lust, but the sharp, hungry note of it is softened by something else that Geralt rarely smells in such pure, undiluted form - happiness. Jaskier is so happy he glows. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s happy and bold, sliding one of his hands under Geralt’s thigh and hitching it up to wrap it around his hip, to better settle against him. Geralt can’t begrudge him his confidence when it aligns their cocks just so, hard and leaking, the wet slide of hot flesh making Geralt see stars. He grabs a handful of that delectable bottom, squeezes and urges Jaskier on, gods, why won’t he just move?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Patience, love,” Jaskier laughs against his lips, breathy and cut off with another kiss. But Geralt has no mind for patience. He’s wanted so much for so long he didn’t even know it, and now that he knows, he’s not letting go. He sneaks a hand between them and wraps his fingers around them both, gathering the drops of precome on the upstroke to slick his palm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He watches Jaskier’s mouth fall open, his eyes squeeze in pleasure, feels him trembling all over and panting nonsensical fragments of words to the rhythm of Geralt’s hand. Never shuts up, Geralt thinks fondly, and his own pleasure sneaks upon him almost unnoticed - one moment Jaskier’s face scrunches desperately and his cock twitches and spurts in Geralt’s grasp, and the next the witcher’s body is seizing up in white-hot pleasure, back arching off the bed so abruptly he nearly headbutts Jaskier in the process, and his own cock adding to the mess between them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He finds Jaskier’s mouth for a sloppy kiss and gives them a couple more of lazy tugs until Jaskier squirms in his lap, muttering an exhausted </span>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck</span>
  </em>
  <span> into his mouth and rolls away, flopping next to Geralt in an uncoordinated sprawl and with a heavenly grin on his face. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, talk about long overdue,” he sighs, sated and comfortable. Geralt looks down on his hand smeared with come and tries to process what just happened. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come here, beautiful,” Jaskier caresses his back, and Geralt frowns. He’s been called many things in his life and beautiful was never one of them. If anyone, Jaskier is the beautiful one here, so irresistible that Geralt very nearly lost his mind as soon as he kissed him-</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt feels another tug of the fingers playing with his hair and he gives in, lying down next to Jaskier and bringing his clean hand to card through his hair, too. Jaskier purrs like a cat when he feels nails scratching lightly against his scalp and Geralt uses it as an excuse to feel around, in a careful exploration masked as a massage. No glamour, no matter how perfect one, can hide things that one </span>
  <em>
    <span>knows</span>
  </em>
  <span> are there-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Geralt?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Startled, Geralt finds Jaskier’s eyes on himself, no longer dazed with post-orgasmic bliss. The velvety, soothing smell of sated happiness in the room is starting to get cloyed with confusion, and worse - soured with suspicion. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe he wasn’t as subtle as he should have been. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you - are you seriously feeling for </span>
  <em>
    <span>horns?</span>
  </em>
  <span>” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt considers lying - and the moment of hesitation is all Jaskier needs for his face to fall and his entire body rolling away from Geralt’s reach, wrapping a bedcover around himself as if modesty mattered anything, after what they did. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you guessed it,” is what Geralt settles for. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>People always describe human fury as hot and Geralt wants to scoff at them. The smell of Jaskier’s fury is colder than the blizzard outside, icy needles prickling all over Geralt’s skin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You think I’m a fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>succubus</span>
  </em>
  <span>? Is that - is that why you-” and then his face crumples and he brings his knees up, curling on himself and hides his face in the fabric, away from Geralt’s gaze. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This isn’t what Geralt wanted. Yes, he wanted to know the truth, but it was never supposed to hurt Jaskier. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t care,” he says soothingly. He means it, even if it hurts a bit. If Jaskier needs sex to feed on the energy, Geralt will give it to him. It doesn’t matter that for a breathless, mindless couple of minutes, all Geralt wanted was for Jaskier’s love to be real. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words are so muffled by the blanket that Geralt thinks he misheard at first. “Jaskier...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get. Out.” Jaskier lifts his head and stares at him, eyes red-rimmed and burning. “I can’t do this, Geralt. I can’t. Get out of my sight. I can’t stand to look at you right now. Do you hear me?” His voice is rising, and Geralt ducks out of bed out of belated self-preservation and gathers his clothes. “Jaskier-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier jumps out of bed, grabs the blanket, wraps it hastily around himself and then strides to the door, throwing it open and pointing an imperious finger at Geralt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You. Out.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wanted to talk-” Geralt gives up on wrestling with his trousers and settles for wrapping his shirt around himself instead. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Talk!” Jaskier shouts. “We can talk once you pull your head out of your ass, witcher! I don’t care if you think I’m whatever creature of the week you’ve been reading about, but this is a new low, Geralt! To believe I’m a fucking sex demon because apparently me </span>
  <em>
    <span>enchanting you senseless </span>
  </em>
  <span>and forcing myself upon you is the only reason why you would ever want me-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then his voice breaks, and he hides his face in his hands, shoulders shaking. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please, just go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt doesn’t know how he has another choice, so he goes. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Familiar</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Let me get this straight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt doesn’t particularly want to, but Vesemir has brought him vodka despite the morning hour. He has also locked the dining hall door and wouldn’t hesitate to put Geralt in a chokehold if he attempted to escape this conversation, so getting it straight it is. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, in the last few weeks, you’ve been convinced that the bard is a siren, a werewolf, a vampire, and a fucking succubus - and let’s not forget a fairy who doesn’t even exist. Am I forgetting something?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt knows Vesemir would know if he lied, so he mutters: “A dragon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A goddamned dragon. Awesome.” Vesemir pours out a shot for himself and knocks it back. “I’m starting to feel real respect for the bard. But whatever. And you’ve been honestly convinced about all these things because, at some point, Jaskier showed all the signs of it being true.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.” Geralt isn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>imagining</span>
  </em>
  <span> things. He’d be a shit witcher if he did. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And every time, you thought you’ve finally figured it out. That this time, you’ve got it right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt doesn’t like where this is going but he has to be honest. “Yes.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vesemir spares him a pitying look. “And it never occurred to you that even if his behaviour was really betraying his nature, he couldn’t possibly be all those creatures at once? Think, Geralt! If he looks like a vampire one day and like a dragon the next, it can only mean he isn’t either.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt scowls. “You think he’s fucking with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I wouldn’t blame him,” Vesemir sighs. “But no, I don’t think that’s it. I think there’s another reason.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt looks up with hope. Vesemir is older and wiser, perhaps he’d found something in the books that eluded Geralt-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think there’s something making you believe all these things that you have failed to mention.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fuck. Vesemir is older, wiser, and always has seen straight through Geralt. And it’s tempting, to finally have this off his chest. Except that Vesemir remembers how witchers were made, and still keeps the laboratory even though the mages required for the job have been wiped out… what if he sees Jaskier’s agelessness as something unnatural, something dangerous?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine,” he relents. “But if I tell you, promise you won’t… dissect him?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vesemir blinks several times, staring at Geralt long enough for the younger witcher to cringe when he replays what he just said, and then he knocks back another two shots of vodka in quick succession.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I promise,” he says seriously, looking like someone undecided between punching Geralt and laughing at him, but Geralt at this point just wants the truth - and fix things with Jaskier. He nods, opening his mouth-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then Vesemir smirks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But it’s not me you’re telling it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I told you, he doesn’t want me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier doesn’t need to lift his head from the pillow he buried his face in to know the unimpressed look Yennefer is giving him. He can feel it. It feels like the entire keep, including the horses out in the stables, is fed up with how pathetic his crush is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When you kissed him, did he kiss back?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Talking about his tumble with his one-time lover's ex is probably the top on Jaskier’s ‘never-to-do’ list but what Yennefer wants, Yennefer gets. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He did,” he allows, “but only because he believed he was under my thrall or something. Like sure, I think he finds me attractive. Trust me, I know I’m a catch.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer snorts at that but doesn’t dispute it. Jaskier smiles despite his mood. Becoming friends with Yennefer is the best thing that came out of all that disaster of the dragon hunt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But,” he continues, “I think he doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>want</span>
  </em>
  <span> to want me. He might want my body but doesn’t want Jaskier the Bard. I don’t know why. Am I truly that unlovable that he has to be convinced the decision is out of his hands to allow himself to indulge?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think you’re giving too much credit to those five leaves of wilted cabbage he has for brains,” Yennefer says mercilessly. “I doubt it’s that complicated.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But what’s his fucking problem?” Jaskier groans. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer shrugs. “Whatever it is, you decaying in your bed won’t solve it. Get up and have breakfast with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can’t you just magick something up here?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer glares. “I will magick those blankets off you if you don’t get up in the next five seconds, bard, and I won’t care if you’re decent or not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine, fine, I’m coming!” Jaskier groans, rolls out of his cocoon of misery, and starts putting on clothes, grateful when Yennefer turns her back for it. Friends or not, he doesn’t want her to see the love bite Geralt left on his neck last night. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ciri leaps out of her room as soon as he emerges into the hallway, proudly showing him the growing calluses on her fingers from practicing the lute. Lambert, Eskel and Coën somehow pile onto the entourage as they descend the stairs, so Jaskier doesn’t suspect anything untoward until he enters the dining hall, spots Geralt’s terrified face at the table, and hears the lock turning behind his back. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m not doing this,” Jaskier declares at the same time Vesemir commands - “Lambert, block the door.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are doing this,” Yennefer states, unfazed. “Leaving you to figure it out on your own didn’t work. Leaving you both alone in the same room worked even less. The winter is not going to lift for another couple of months and your moping is painful to watch. I don’t yet have the strength to portal myself away from your stupidity so you have to spare us the suffering and talk it out, now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier slumps, passing a baleful gaze over the faces of his friends. The traitors. At the table, Geralt holds himself stiff as a board, very much looking like someone wishing he could slither down the chair and hide under the table. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine,” he grumbles and then he sniffs. “Is there vodka? Drinking at dawn, how dreadful. But I suppose the situation does call for dire deeds.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eskel helpfully provides him with a cup as he takes a place opposite Geralt. He leaves it untouched for now, opting for folding his arms over his chest and offering Geralt the best politely blank face he can muster. “Let’s get this over with.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt’s jaw works for a moment, his eyes so pained that for a moment Jaskier fears the oaf actually bit off his own tongue to escape his fate, but then he opens his mouth and growls out: “I’m sorry. About… last night.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, me too,” Jaskier agrees tiredly, and takes a bit of cruel satisfaction in the way Geralt’s face falls. “Can we go now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” several people say at once. “Tell him what you wanted to tell me,” Vesemir prompts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier braces himself, hoping the way his heart is trying to beat out of his chest is not showing on his face. Then he remembers he’s locked in the same room as five witchers with enhanced hearing, and - fuck it. If Geralt talked about him with Vesemir, it can mean only one thing, he’s going to be thrown out, escorted down the mountain if he’s lucky-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt’s already pale face blanches even more and then he grits out: </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jaskier, why haven’t you aged a day since we met twenty years ago?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>During the past weeks, Geralt has concluded that Jaskier truly wasn’t aware of the strange phenomenon of his age. That whatever was affecting him, it wasn’t anything Jaskier was consciously aware of. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s why it comes as a bit of shock when the first expression on Jaskier’s face upon hearing that dreaded question is… guilt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it’s not lost on the others, too. Ciri gasps and Coën frowns, unconsciously shifting his feet wider, moving his hand to rest on the sheath of his dagger. Geralt wants to growl at him but he’s too stunned to react at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” Jaskier admits in a small voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vesemir lifts a hand, halting the others. His face has grown serious. “You noticed, and you never thought to find out why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier squirms in his chair. “I started noticing some ten years into our travels. I was thirty, my peers at Oxenfurt have started to settle down into tenured positions, getting fat around the middle and bald at the top- but not me. I…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks up, pleading eyes directed at Geralt. “And it wasn’t as if I was hurting anyone, was I? It gave me so many more years on the road before my bones would grow too weary for the cold nights and hard ground. Before I would grow too slow to outrun the monsters that I used to get too close to. I thought life has just given me a blessing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt’s heart squeezes. That’s how Jaskier used to see all their years and travels together - a blessing. And then Geralt went and asked for the one blessing in his life, for that to end. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For once in his life, he’s fiercely glad that Destiny doesn’t give a fuck about what he wants and simply threw Jaskier back onto his Path. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier shrinks on himself further and mutters: “I didn’t realise it would make you all think I’m a monster, but I suppose it’s a logical conclusion.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not-” Geralt starts and at the same time, Vesemir talks over him: “You’re right. It’s definitely not human, even though otherwise you look and smell like one. Have you perhaps indebted some mage to yourself?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier laughs. “Honestly, if I got into a tight spot with a mage, it’d end up the other way around, me indebted to them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yennefer could find out if there’s any benevolent spell on him,” Ciri speaks up. “She’s more sensitive to magic than any of you are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seven pairs of eyes turn to the sorceress who’s sitting close to the fireplace, skirts draped around her like a regal garb. She lifts her chin, every gesture and line of her face radiating supreme boredom with the conversation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There isn’t any. I wonder how you haven’t figured it out already. It’s clear as a day what the bard is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier gasps with betrayal but it’s drowned amongst several shouts at once, the noise amounting to “Then tell us, witch!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer crosses her legs with a haughty smile. It wouldn’t be her if she wasn’t enjoying her power. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s a familiar.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Geralt’s familiar, more precisely.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then the pandemonium erupts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought that was cats or birds-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pretty sure witchers don’t have familiars-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop it!” Cirilla yells, hands clasped over her ears. “I want to hear the explanation!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, but so wants Geralt. And Jaskier, too, if the pissed look on his face is anything to go by.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you’re trying to imply I just imprinted on Geralt like a newborn duckling-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, you did follow him around for twenty years,” Yennefer shoots back. Then she takes one look at Geralt and her expression softens. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s true. All magic users have familiars, another living being holding a part of their soul and tethering them to this plane in case the Chaos should ever overwhelm them. It’s true that it’s usually a cat or a crow but technically it can be any living being. Besides, the bard is so high maintenance he might as well be a cat in human form.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m ever so grateful you didn’t go for the joke about my singing and crows,” Jaskier manages to quip before he’s silenced again by her disapproving glare. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Think of it as a soulbond. The witcher’s use of magic is limited, that’s why the bond is not enough to make your familiar feel your wounds-” she ignores Geralt’s pained noise and barrels on, “-but it’s enough to tie his mortal lifespan to yours.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My soulmate,” Geralt breathes out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Bollocks,” says Lambert. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it true?” Eskel asks quietly, turning to Vesemir. “Witchers can have a familiar?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vesemir is stroking his beard. He looks at Geralt, at Jaskier, and finally at Yennefer, who returns his gaze with a lift of her eyebrows. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Aye,” Vesemir says after what feels like an eternity. “They can, only it’s very rare. Hasn’t happened in generations.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The younger witchers take his verdict as a cue to start shouting again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want a familiar too!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pretty sure your horse is yours, Lambert.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go fuck your goat, Eskel. What if it has to be a bard? Perhaps Jaskier could-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get yourself your own bards,” Geralt lets his voice boom over theirs, extending his hand over the table to grasp Jaskier’s, and feeling his soul soar when the bard squeezes back. “I’m keeping this one.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Later that night, after Geralt is peacefully asleep in his bed, Jaskier slips out and goes to confront Yennefer. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What the fuck was that bullshit about familiars?” he hisses as soon as he makes sure they’re alone in the library and in that entire wing of the keep for good measure. “You know as well as I do that it’s a children’s fairy tale.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would you rather I told him the truth?” Yennefer hisses back. “That I made you basically immortal by mistake?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier has to sit down. “You? When? And what, by mistake?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sorceress has the decency to look uncomfortable. “It happened when Geralt brought you to me, with your throat swollen and guts bleeding out by djinn’s magic. He asked me - </span>
  <em>
    <span>begged me</span>
  </em>
  <span> - to save you. He didn’t want you to die as a consequence of his actions. Anything the price, he said.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh.” Jaskier is glad he’s sitting. “And you took him as the price, I guess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer’s eyes flash and Jaskier yelps when an electric shock stings his ear. “I did my damnedest to seduce him,” she allows, “but the djinn’s magic tying us together was all his idea. A spectacularly dumb one, if you ask me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier has no trouble agreeing with that. “So you...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Djinn magic is tricky and very hard to counter,” she sighs. “Geralt wished for peace and quiet, the djinn decided you needed to be silenced permanently. When he brought you to me, I could instantly see you were dripping with djinn magic. Such power, wasted on silencing one stupid human bard. So in healing you, I tried to extract the excess of that power - I’d have much better uses for it than a cranky witcher.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks to her hands, and if Jaskier didn’t know her better, he’d say she’s embarrassed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I miscalculated. I managed to free a certain amount of that magic, but it was still attuned to Geralt’s will, not mine. And so it promptly took and fulfilled the last thing he wished for… that you wouldn’t die in consequences of his actions.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier gapes. “But that doesn’t mean I should-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Djinns are tricky bastards,” Yennefer shrugs. “They would kill you when Geralt wanted you to shut up, and they tied your lifespan to his when he didn’t want you to die because of him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But why not simply tell him? If this is all about your pride-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer rolls her eyes at him. “Do you want to tell him there’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>another</span>
  </em>
  <span> person tied to him by his wish? You’ve seen how well he deals with that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh. Jaskier swallows back his words and nods. What Yennefer says is true. Geralt would probably just go down another spiral of doubt and self-loathing if he knew. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it’s not as if the prospect of being the witcher’s familiar is a bad one. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, the ballads he could write about this. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Comments are love, let me love you back!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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